Karu Jain made an instant impression on her debut in 2004, making 64 against West Indies, and has been an integral part of the Indian side ever since. She's the wicketkeeper, too. Her career highlight to date was reaching the World Cup final in 2005, where her team lost to Australia, although helping India to a 4-1 series win against England later on that year must come close. She struck a century in the final match and was instrumental in building up to that series victory. Yet to turn 21, she gained further experience in between those two senior events, by captaining the Young India side which toured Pakistan in that September and October.

Poor form in the ODIs in England led to Jain being dropped from India's successfulcampaign to retain the Asia Cup, hosted by India, in December 2006. She returned to the side for the Quadrangular tournament in February-March 2007 in Chennai and got three half-centuries from seven games. Her two opening century-partnerships with Jaya Sharma, in the Quadrangular, may prompt selectors to retain the two for the home series against Sri Lanka in October even though Jain missed out on being picked for the Afro-Asia tournament in June.Cricinfo Staff May 2007